(Bob Hagin's exposure to Volvo goes back to its early days in the
U.S. Matt Hagin observes that the new Volvo C70 harks back to those days
when Volvos had curves.)

BOB - The last Volvo that had a curvaceous body was the famous P1800
coupe and the last of them rolled off the line in '78. After that, it
seems that the company got stuck in the "shoe box" school of design
which equated squareness with safety. It's taken the company a long time
to decide that it can design and build a car that's fast and sexy and
still be safe. A couple of years ago, Volvo entered the mainstream of
automotive design and phased out angularity.

MATT -Volvo's C70 coupe has been out for a couple of years now, and
it was laid down in the typical European sports coupe style of making a
four-place car that makes no pretense of providing room in back for
three. The single seat back there is bolstered in such a way that
passengers back there feel like they're in individual bucket seats.
There's no rear center seat belt, so the driver won't be tempted to try
to squeeze in an extra rider. The C70 is actually an immediate offspring
of the angular Volvo 850 of a few years back and that upright favorite
of clear-thinkers and engineer-types provided the chassis platform and
running gear for the C70. But while the main pieces are the same, it
took 1800 redesigned pieces to change the homely 850 into the C70. What
a difference!

BOB - Those carry-over pieces make the C70 a pretty good performer
and the five-cylinder, 2.3 liter engine comes in two degrees of tune. To
transform the coupe into a relatively hot performer, Volvo offers a
turbocharged engine with a bit more pressure boost which jumps the
already good 190-horse powerplant up to an output of 236. The pragmatic
Swedes call the two systems simply "High Pressure Turbo" and "Light
Pressure Turbo." While that 40 extra horsepower doesn't put it into the
exotic supercar category, it allows the driver to reach 60 MPH from a
dead stop in just over six seconds. The low pressure version can only be
had with an four-speed automatic but the hot-rod model can also be
ordered with a five-speed manual. My choice would be the high-
performance model with the automatic because the turbocharger seems to
give a slight stumble just when the driver upshifts going through the
gears. On the other hand, the shifts with the automatic are seamless.

MATT - Where some of the Volvos of the past have had interiors that
were somewhat somber, the trapping of the C70 are smooth and light. The
front reclining bucket seats are electrically adjustable eight ways and
there are three different memory settings. The in-dash CD player holds
three discs and the sound system plays though a 400-watt amplifier and
into no less than 10 speakers. Its dual zone electronic climate control
system automatically regulates cockpit temperatures by using a single
passenger compartment sensor. This unit constantly modulates the
interior by switching it between recirculating inside air or pulling in
fresh air from the outside. And for hay-fever sufferers, this system
utilizes a replaceable pollen and dust filter.

BOB - The car is a bit hefty at 3400 pounds but with a drag
coefficient of just .29, it slips through the air quite easily. This no
doubt helps it get an average of 23 MPG which isn't bad considering the
fact that it's a 236-horse performance car. Although the handling is
good, I think that as an option there should be a sports suspension
package offered that would tighten things up a bit more. Using typical
Scandinavian logic and technology, the C70 has a Winter Mode switch on
the console that makes the automatic-powered cars start up in third gear
to help eliminate wheel spin on snow-covered streets. And I was somewhat
surprised that the C70 has a towing capacity of 3300 pounds.

MATT - Volvo has come a long way in the sports coupe market since
the P1800, Dad. This C70 has a lot of features that didn't exist in 1962
not the least of which is readily-available air conditioning.

BOB - Back then, we didn't miss what we'd never had, Matt, but I
don't want to have to drive a car with a/c in the summer ever again.

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